Lesbian Visibility Day Part 1: Livin’ the Love

In episode #6 of Lesbihonest, La Shaguita begins her celebration of Spain’s Lesbian Visibility Day by reflecting on the reasons she is proud to be a visible lesbian herself. This episode is the first of two in this series. In part two, La Shaguita will stop being so freakin’ self- focused, and will hit the streets to get some Spanish ladies’ points of view instead. Click the play button to have a listen, or read the written manifesto below.

It’s been nearly two years since I fell in love with the first woman who reciprocated love back to me. At that time, I woke up from many years of loveless slumber. It was then that I learned without the faintest shadow of a doubt, that I am a LESBIAN. A proud, sexual, loving and lovable Lesbian. I called her my dream, mi sueño. And that’s what she was. My dream who woke me up. Life was walking poetry back then. I felt pure joy for the first time. I saw her love in everything – in a flower, in a thought, in the glance of a stranger. And yet I knew that her love came from a place much larger than her, than me, than what we had or didn’t have together.

Those were the days when I paraded my lesbianism every moment I could. I walked around in rainbow shirts, bragged to all my friends, and vowed to somehow contribute to the wider lesbian cause with the hope that one day everyone will know, accept and honor the fact that loving who you choose to love is not only a beautiful gift but an inalienable, absolute human right.

When I realized that my first reciprocated love and I were going to go our separate ways, I was devastated. I didn’t understand how something so beautiful and profound could dwindle into what it had become. And yet I made a promise at that time that I would not see our love as a loss, but instead as an expansion of the universe, a path which would be my foundation and point of return.

I believed so strongly in those words. But then the flowers wilted, my thoughts went downward, and the glance of strangers grew cold. When my first love ended, much of my self-respect, self-esteem, passion, love for life, and excitement about my newfound lesbianity went away with her. Yet I haven’t forgotten my promise – a promise I would have never made if I hadn’t embraced my own lesbianity, and if the love I saw through her didn’t already exist inside my own heart.

It’s been months since I’ve spoken with my ex-love. I can’t talk to her. I have no idea how to talk to her without making use of my entire heart. And that’s not necessarily a compliment to her, by the way. It’s a compliment to the love she helped me see. A love that lasted for a fleeting moment but was bigger than the entire universe. A love that gave me something to cherish, and a goal to which I should aspire.

I’m now on a quest to rediscover that same infinite, wordless, beautiful love – not inside her this time, but inside my own self. That shit’s hard, people. But there’s no way around it. And if I had never loved her, and loved and honored the Lesbian within myself, I would never be reporting back to you, with love, on this beautiful Día de la Visibilidad Lésbica.